RBS did not defraud small businesses, says law firm

Ross McEwan: “We could not let this allegation hang over us”FACUNDO ARRIZABALAGA

Royal Bank of Scotland has been cleared of defrauding thousands of small business customers in an independent report commissioned by the taxpayer-owned lender.

A review by Clifford Chance, the law firm, cleared RBS of every charge put forward by Lawrence Tomlinson, an adviser to Vince Cable, the Business Secretary, in his excoriating report last year. The report accused RBS of forcing small businesses to the brink of collapse before buying their assets on the cheap.

Ross McEwan, the chief executive of RBS, which is 81 per cent owned by the Government, said that Clifford Chance’s findings “show no evidence of the serious and damaging allegation that we had set out to deliberately defraud our business customers”.